WW, I completely agree with the thought, but disagree that it would work. Take your example of Mythbusters.

The early episodes of the show had a lot more of the science, a lot more smaller experiments. Recent episodes are more like traditional reality shows, with a lot of talking personalities instead of the action of building.

Beth, when I said de-support other fields I was talking about government support.Quite frankly, someone who is not going into teaching but goes into English or Philosophy is probably not going to help drive the economy.Thus, I would not want to see the government support them.That does not mean that educational institutions or others won't.These individuals will typically be going into other fields anyway.I was talking to some people we know locally and their daughter was there visiting from college.She was studying Conflict Resolution. Her interest is foreign service.Does that qualify as something we as a people should support with tax dollars.For teaching of non-technical school classes we have state teaching colleges all over this country.This is appropriate.People will go into those other fields on their own.Their ability to get jobs, in any country, in those fields outside of teaching are limited.I do value these other fields, don't get me wrong.When I was a senior in high school I was taking pre-engineering and physics and calculus as a senior.I also tutored 10th grade English students.The teacher I worked for had a PhD in American Literature.She was great.I really valued the experience.When I went to Villanova we were required to take a full liberal arts curriculum in addition to our majors throughout the school.I really enjoyed that.

I would like to add that in our school district here in Illinois we have wonderful teachers.We also have a strong STEM program.As a member of the IEEE and the Chair of a society locally I am very aware of, and getting involved in, our programs to support STEM education.This is perhaps not typical, but it is a grass roots program with lots of parent participation.We are told constantly that China and India have all these educated engineers and that is one of the reasons they are able to compete.As long as we are supporting education through the government, that support should be targeted to the needs of the society.

@Alex this is an easy one. You want more people in STEM? Make Geek Chic. Replace "American Idol" with "American Inventor". After "Desperate Housewives" finishes its run, fill the time slot with "Myth Busters". Fund Robotics Competitions in Middle and High Schools (Sea Perch, FIRST Robotics). Make more shows like "Big Bang Theory" and "Chuck".

Hollywood both reflects and forms culture. Make STEM folks "rock stars" instead of Nerds and problem is solved instantly.

It may be that funding at the College and University levels could produce more significant immediate impact and results. The competition for the brightest and best, especially when tops students are looking to medicine and other health care fields, would be a good place to start. But we also need to address the movement of tech jobs out of the U.S. since that is probably even a bigger issue for top students deciding on their future direction.

I am all for government support for STEM programs and do believe an educated and ample talent pool of future engineers is critical for the US' future. I beg to differ, though, with the comment about the government funding STEM at the exclusion of other programs like literature or history. I'm not sure I buy the fact that unless you go into teaching, you can't add value or create jobs pursuing those degrees. And while you hope that STEM initiatives that produce a flood of highly trained US engineers would translate into new companies and new jobs in the US, there are no guarantees that the up and coming generation won't fall into the same old outsourcing routines categorized manufacturing these last two decades.

A few weeks ago, Ford Motor Co. quietly announced that it was rolling out a new wrinkle to the powerful safety feature called stability control, adding even more lifesaving potential to a technology that has already been very successful.

It won't be too much longer and hardware design, as we used to know it, will be remembered alongside the slide rule and the Karnaugh map. You will need to move beyond those familiar bits and bytes into the new world of software centric design.

People who want to take advantage of solar energy in their homes no longer need to install a bolt-on solar-panel system atop their houses -- they can integrate solar-energy-harvesting shingles directing into an existing or new roof instead.

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